Introduction for the UnderAcademy College

1. Think Differently:
Inventing Electrate Thinking Practices
Introduction to Electracy
Richard Smyth, C.M.
Full Digressor
UnderAcademy College
19 February 2013

2. What is Electracy?
 a neologism created by Greg Ulmer
describing the skills necessary to exploit the
full communicative potential of new media
 “Electracy is to digital media what literacy is
to print media”
 draws attention to need for entirely new term
that avoids etymological connection to
literacy

3. Need for a “Native” Concept
 Proliferation of “Literacies”
 digital literacy
 media literacy
 information literacy
 computer literacy
 procedural literacy
 All based on old paradigm of “literacy”
(littera  “letter”)

4. Need for a “Native” Concept
“It is important to distinguish electracy from
other terms, such as computer-based
literacy, Internet literacy, digital literacy,
electronic literacies, metamedia literacy,
and even cyber-punk literacy. None of
these other terms have the breadth
electracy does as a concept, and none of
them draw their ontology from electronic
media exclusively.”
--James Inman. “Electracy for the Ages: Collaboration with the Past
and Future.”

5. Apparatus Theory
 an apparatus is a “social machine” that
maps the intersection among
 communications and mnemonic
technologies
 institutional practices employing these
technologies
 subject formation (i.e. conceptions of
selfhood) resulting from such
intersections

6. Apparatus = Major Epochs
I. Orality: 40,000 BCE – present
II. Alphabetic Literacy: 5,000 BCE –
present
III. Print Literacy: 1447 CE - present
IV. Electracy: 1830 - present

7. Time Line
αlphaβetic
Literacy
750 BCE
Printing Press
1447 CE
Peter Ramus
1515-1572
1820
1901
1927
1984

8. Grammatology
 study of “the history and theory of writing”
 uses the history of literacy as an analogy to
our own moment
 also uses comparisons with the transition
from orality to literacy to organize inquiry
into the transition from literacy to electracy
(Electronic Monuments xxiii)
 “Literacy shows us by analogy what we are
looking for, but it does not give us the
answer.” (Internet Invention 29)

9. Some of Ulmer’s analogies
 “What selfhood was to the Greeks,
branding is to us.”
 “Playing one’s avatar is for electracy
what writing an essay is to literacy”
 “Electracy does for the affective body
what literacy did for the cogitative
mind”
- Ulmer. “The Genealogy of Electracy.”

10. Some more analogies
 “School is to literacy as the internet
is to electracy” (29)
 “Performance may be to electracy
what definition was to literacy” (38)
 “A literate person reasons on paper
(text); an electrate person feels
online (felt)” (145)
-- Ulmer. Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy

11. Analogical Heuretics (Process)
Tree : dialectical logic ::
Rhizome : ___________?
A variation on this exercise is to select
a different natural form as the
vehicle of the metaphor:
Tree : dialectical logic ::
A natural form : A classification system
-- Ulmer. “Handbook for a Theory Hobby”

12. Analogical Heuretics (1st
Example)
concepts : literacy :: x : electracy
x = “decepts” (for example)
literacy makes conceptual thinking
possible
electracy makes “deceptual thinking”
possible (?)

13. “Deceptual Thinking”?

14. “Deceptual Thinking”?
“In sum, MUDs blur the boundaries
between self and game, self and
role, self and simulation. One player
says, ‘You are what you pretend to
be. . .you are what you play.’”
--Sherry Turkle. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the
Internet. p. 192.

15. “Deceptual Thinking”?
“The changing nature of identity in
digital civilization is manifested here
in the theme of impersonation. . .”
--Gregory Ulmer. Internet Invention. pp. 7-8.

16. Analogical Heuretics (2nd
example)
definition : literacy :: infinition : electracy
if definition is the act of making clear…
then infinition is the act of making unclear…
(http://electrateprofessor.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/infinition-thinking-fractal/)

17. Thinking-Fractal?
Then infinition is
the creation of
unclear or “fuzzy”
boundaries
If definition is
the creation of
clear
boundaries. . .
animated gif from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake

18. Inventing New Thinking
“Electracy is not against literacy but is the
means to assist our society in adding a new
dimension to our language capabilities.
This project. . . proposes that our discipline
also has primary responsibility for inventing
the practices of reasoning and communi-
cating in ways native to new media.”
--Jeff Rice. The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New
Media. p. xi.

19. Transitional Moments  Fear
“. . .this discovery of yours will create
forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because
they will not use their memories; they will
trust to the external written characters and
not remember of themselves. . . . they will
be hearers of many things and will have
learned nothing; they will appear to be
omniscient and will generally know nothing;
they will be tiresome company, having the
show of wisdom without the reality.”
-- Plato. Phaedrus.

20. Transitional Moments  Fear
“As a cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of
reading, I am particularly concerned with
the plight of the reading brain as it
encounters this technologically rich society .
. . the reading brain is slowly becoming
endangered - the unforeseen consequences
of the transition to a digital epoch that is
affecting every aspect of our lives. . .”
-- Maryanne Wolf. “Learning to Think in a Digital World.”

21. “Transitions like the one from print to electronic
media do not take place without rippling or,
more likely, reweaving the entire social and
cultural web. The tendencies outlined above are
already at work. We don't need to look far to
find their effects. . . . our educational systems
are in decline; our students are less and less
able to read and comprehend their required
texts, and their aptitude scores have leveled off
well below those of previous generations.”
--Sven Birkerts. The Gutenberg Elegies.
Transitional Moments  Fear

22. Electracy: Invitation to Invention
“The difficulty of studying our own
moment is that we are immersed in
it, and everything is in flux.”
--Greg Ulmer. “The Grammatology of the Future.” p. 139.

23. References
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic
Age. Viewed 1/21/2010. http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/
books/nn/bdbirk.htm.
Plato. Phaedrus. Viewed 1/20/2010. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato
/phaedrus.html.
Rice, Jeff. The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New
Media. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2007.
Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Ulmer, Gregory L. “The Genealogy of Electracy.” Reconstruction 9.2 (2009).
Viewed 1/20/2010. http://reconstruction.eserver.org/092/ulmer.shtml.

24. References
---. “The Grammatology of the Future.” Deconstructing Derrida: Tasks for the
New Humanities. Eds. Peter Pericles Trifonas and Michael A. Peters. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
---. “Handbook for a Theory Hobby.” Visible Language XXII.4 (Autumn, 1988).
399-422.
---. Electronic Monuments. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota P, 2005.
---. Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy. New York: Longman
Press, 2003.
Wolf, Maryanne. “Learning to Think in a Digital World.” Boston Globe (5 Sept
2007). Viewed 1/20/2010. http://www.boston.com/news/globe
/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/05/learning_to_think_in_a_digital
_world/.